Alison Redford was used to the grind of the campaign trail, the hurly-burly of the legislature and the constant pressure of the public spotlight.

But when Alberta’s premier went behind the closed doors of a Calgary hotel conference room last Saturday to confront executives of her own Progressive Conservative party, the tough talk descended into a political inquisition.

For more than four hours, she sat as the PC board of directors aired a laundry list of grievances about her leadership — and her personally — only to emerge looking pale and drawn, with a tight smile on her face.

“She was numb,” says a source close to the premier.

“Put yourself in her shoes. Can you imagine sitting around a table with 50 colleagues and having them literally go around the table, one by one, and tell you everything you’ve done wrong, and everything you’re doing wrong, challenging your every assumption about yourself, challenging your integrity.

“It was just disgraceful — and I would never wish that on my worst enemy, frankly.”

This difficult moment with some of the party’s most loyal members — volunteers who spend hours toiling for the PC brand, making it the most successful dynasty in Canadian political history — marked a shift in the 29-month leadership of Alison Redford.

Not only was she being assailed by opposition members and angry voters, she was now on the defensive while inside the PC party’s tent.

“It was relentless,” says one Tory member who was inside the hotel room. “She was told at one time that I don’t think we can win the next election with you as our leader. That was pretty harsh.”

Yet, those close to the 48-year-old Calgarian don’t believe a single moment convinced Redford to resign or pushed her from power.

Instead, the steadily accumulating pile of political problems, incessant internal pressure and uninterrupted attacks on her reputation wore her down.

And in the four days before her announcement Wednesday night, the idea of resignation became a real possibility — something that unfolded with unexpected speed last Wednesday evening.

Stephen Carter, her former chief of staff and campaign manager, calls the situation a “Greek tragedy,” with a gifted political leader letting one flaw — her sense that the world “owed her” something — turn fatal.

“It’s a complete and total failure. You do not get a mandate from the people of Alberta two years ago with staggering numbers, and then have to give up two years later and not call it a failure,” he laments.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

FROM VICTOR TO VANQUISHED

Redford captured the helm of the four-decade-old Tory dynasty in 2011 by running a feisty, underdog, outsider campaign.

In many ways, she was always an uneasy fit at the top, despite leading the Progressive Conservatives to another large majority in the April 2012 election — a campaign in which ads with a large picture of Redford famously declared, this is “not your father’s PC party.”

Her victory in the provincial election, despite trailing in the polls, seemed to cement the future of Alberta’s first female premier.

She was atop the legendary political machine of Lougheed and Klein, Stelmach and Getty.

“I anticipated great things for us as a group,” says Donna Kennedy-Glans, a first-time candidate from the oilpatch who won the riding of Calgary-Varsity on election night.

“I had a sense of practical optimism about what was possible.”

But in recent weeks, grumblings from within the party that had once been muted began to grow louder.

Since last fall, the party’s standing dropped in the polls over a series of missteps, while rumours circulated that the PC caucus was growing increasingly unhappy with her top-down management style.

Her personal approval rating “dropped off a cliff” to just 20 per cent in late February, said pollster Ian Large of Leger.

Redford faced increasing accusations that she abused taxpayer dollars, with a $45,000 trip to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s memorial in December.

Polls showed eight in 10 Albertans wanted her to pay the money back, including a majority of Tory supporters.

She refused.

On March 12, in the face of a caucus mutiny, Redford relented, telling reporters at the legislature she would repay the money.

It wasn’t enough for one disgruntled Tory MLA.

Calgary-Foothills MLA Len Webber announced he would leave the PC caucus to sit as an Independent in protest of Redford’s leadership.

And where Redford was once described at times as aloof and demanding in her relations with caucus and party members, Webber labelled her as bully who intimidated underlings and colleagues.

Tory party president Jim McCormick said the allegations were “troubling” and the regularly scheduled meeting of the PC board of directors last Saturday would delve into the issue, along with other problems.

Two separate board members described the gathering as “brutal,” as the premier absorbed the scathing assessment of some senior Tory board members.

She was told by one director that some constituencies had given up on her as leader, while others warned of a troubling lack of communication between the party, caucus and the premier’s office.

“The overwhelming issue was her,” said one director. “With everything taken together, it’s not a matter of policy, it’s an issue of likability and trust.”

At the gathering, the premier listened to much of the criticism without responding, and pledged things would be better.

However, none of the party directors called on Redford to resign and journalists were allowed inside for a photo opportunity.

Redford, with McCormick by her side, told reporters they had agreed on a work plan where “the party will be taking a look at ... what they would like me to do.”

While Redford appeared to be on probation with the party, members of her PC caucus weren’t satisfied.

“There wasn’t anything nefarious,” Edmonton-Riverview MLA Young now says, downplaying the meeting’s significance but conceding leadership was on the table.

“It was everything everybody else was talking about in a coffee shop. The difference is that we’re MLAs ... We did talk about issues that were the talk of the town — or the talk of the province — and that’s about it.”

For Brown, longtime MLA for Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill, the idea of crossing the floor was a last resort.

“We were concerned about the fact there was a lot of turmoil in the party, and I guess the bottom line was we were discussing the ways that we could make things better — and what needed to be done,” he says.

“My advice to some of the more junior members was, in fact, to be calm and relaxed and stay part of the team.”

Amery, another veteran Calgary MLA, says with a laugh that “it was not like we were there trying to prepare a coup or something.”

But he acknowledges the range of opinions inside the room was wide.

Amery wouldn’t join Webber in crossing the floor, nor call for Redford to resign, but he wanted a major shakeup in her staff.

Other MLAs in attendance wanted Redford out, however, and some were prepared to leave caucus if necessary, he says.

And on Monday morning, just as MLAs were arriving at Government House in Edmonton for a caucus meeting set to discuss the work plan for the premier, Redford’s leadership took another torpedo.

Kennedy-Glans, just appointed in December as the associate minister for electricity and renewable energy, announced in Calgary she would leave the Tory caucus to sit as an Independent.

Her criticism of Redford was muted, but damaging, as she raised concerns about broader problems within the caucus and government.

The revelation Kennedy-Glans and Redford had only met once face-to-face in the two years since she’d been elected in Calgary-Varsity fed into questions about the premier’s management style.

Redford, meanwhile, had to face her second grilling in three days, this time from restless MLAs.

With rumours of more resignations and floor-crossings in the air, Monday’s caucus meeting saw Redford peppered with tough critiques and questions.

Amery says the PC politicians were respectful, but there was blunt talk about concerns over her leadership and the state of the government.

“I’ll tell you that in my 21 years in caucus, this meeting was really the highlight of free speech,” he says.

The source close to Redford said the caucus meeting was “very similar” in tone to the meeting of the board of directors less than 48 hours earlier.

As more party members and MLAs openly defied Redford’s leadership, the premier began to question how much “public humiliation” and “character assassination” she wanted to swallow.

Rumours also beset Redford as talk swirled among the political class that another damaging allegation was about to surface, a charge hotly denied by those close to the premier.

“To see a very proud and very strong woman go through what she has over the last few weeks, was really, really heartbreaking,” says the source.

“This was just not worth doing anymore.”

FINAL STEPS

In question period Monday afternoon, Redford received a standing ovation from the Tory benches — and mock applause from the Wildrose — when NDP Leader Brian Mason asked whether she had sufficient support to keep governing.

But her situation deteriorated as both Young and Jeneroux, the youngest MLA in the Tory government, mused openly about leaving caucus out of their concerns with Redford.

Both the party president and government house leader Robin Campbell responding by saying they wouldn’t be punished for speaking out.

“It’s a free country,” Campbell told reporters at the legislature.

Other PC MLAs, such as Amery and George Rogers, also began making their concerns known publicly, although neither called for Redford to step down.

Amery, in fact, believed Redford was going to make changes to try to salvage her premiership.

“Honestly, based on the conversation we had on Monday and how open she was to hear our views, I was surprised by the (resignation),” he says.

“Maybe I didn’t read her right. Or probably none of us (did).”

But Amery believes other members of the Tory caucus were poised to cross the floor this week if Redford stayed on as premier.

“I think the hair that broke the camel’s back was that some MLAs weren’t really happy or content with what was happening and things kept coming on an almost daily basis,” he says.

Sources close to Redford say various plans were being developed behind the scenes to deal with the situation.

Options ranged from cleaning out the staff in her office to cracking down on the dissidents. A group within caucus rallied to the premier’s side and offered support in the push to stabilize her leadership, the source said.

On Tuesday, Redford skipped question period in the legislature, but met with troops returning from Afghanistan that evening in Edmonton.

The next morning, she delivered a tepidly received speech to the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, but broke with past practice and avoided the usual scrum with the media. Again, she was not in the legislature for question period.

By mid-day, another bleak opinion poll landed, showing the party lagging further behind the Wildrose, while Redford’s approval rating sank to 18 per cent.

Another serious problem loomed in the hours ahead.

Tory constituency association presidents were set to meet Wednesday night in Calgary and Edmonton to debate resolutions calling upon Redford to step aside — something that threatened to publicly humiliate the PC leader.

During the afternoon, she had a long meeting with deputy premier Dave Hancock.

Hancock won’t discuss details of the tete-a-tete that unfolded just hours before she resigned.

“But I would say this. I’ve worked very hard, as have members of this caucus, to encourage her to continue the good work she was doing,” he said Thursday.

“But, ultimately, it becomes an individual’s choice and determination whether they feel they can effectively go forward and, at some point in time, she made that decision that for the good of Alberta, for the good of the government, that she needed to step aside.”

Redford let a small number of staff know of her decision, so the logistics of the announcement in the rotunda could be arranged.

Then, members of her office were called into the cabinet room, where Redford announced her final big decision.

“She thanked us all and told us. There was a lot of tears and a lot of admiration all around the table,” said one aide.

Another source said the mood in the room was “very sad,” but “she was very strong.”

“At the end, the feeling was we all wanted her to be happy.”

At 4:49 p.m., a tweet went out from Redford’s Twitter account: “I will be making an important announcement this evening at 6 p.m.”

MLAs weren’t told in advance what was going to happen, nor were senior party members.

Amery said that as chair of the legislature’s economic future committee, he had a meeting scheduled with Redford for 3 p.m. that day.

When it was suddenly cancelled, he began to suspect something was afoot.

At 6 p.m., with Hancock by her side, Redford strolled down the marble steps of the legislature rotunda to face a throng of media, MLAs and staff.

For several minutes, smiling but occasionally holding back tears, she talked about the accomplishments of the government under her watch, with a focus on “delivering both a progressive — and I underline that word — and a conservative change.”

She spoke of a forward-looking vision for Alberta, with the province asserting itself on the world’s stage.

“Too much time has been spent over the last few weeks on questions of loyalty and allegiances and character. Too many people have been distracted from the important work that the people of Alberta sent us here to do,” she said.

“Quite simply, I am not prepared to allow party and caucus infighting to get in the way of building a better future for our province and for all Albertans, and that is why ... I am resigning as premier of Alberta, effective this Sunday evening.”

Those close to Redford said she decided to go because it was the right thing, both for herself and the government.

“Everybody keeps telling me Alison Redford is a fighter,” said one source close to the premier. “Yes, but you pick your battles.”

For Kennedy-Glans, who’d left the Tory caucus just days earlier, one thought crossed her mind after Redford finished speaking.

“Sadness. It’s such a sad thing to see any person prematurely leave in a leadership role,” she says.

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